A 2020 bump
California’s minimum wage will rise by a buck to $12 an hour for businesses with 25 or fewer employees and $13 an hour for larger employers, part of a state-mandated climb to $15 by 2023.
Bay Area cities will up the ante even further to encourage minimum wage workers to stay in those high-cost areas, reports The Mercury News’ Erica Hellerstein for the California Divide project.
Ka-ching:
Los Altos, Palo Alto and Santa Clara all will raise the hourly minimum wage to $15.40, El Cerrito to $15.37, Cupertino to $15.35, San Jose to $15.25, and South San Francisco will hit $15.
In Los Angeles
city and county, the minimum is $13.25 per hour for smaller employers and $14.25 for larger ones, with an increase scheduled for July 2020. Most other cities follow the state wage minimums. The federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, remaining unchanged since 2009.
—CALMatters
Top of mind: homelessness
California’s 2020 agenda will again be topped by its most vexing and shameful issue: the large and rising number of residents who lack a safe place to call home. CalMatters’ Matt Levin and Jackie Botts break down the state’s homelessness crisis.
Numbers:
More than 150,000 Californians slept in shelters, cars or on the street last year — up 17% from 2018.
African-Americans and Native Americans are overrepresented. So are those who identify as LGBTQ, and men.
The good news: decreasing family and veteran homelessness.
Reasons:
Rising rents have left a 1.4 million shortage of homes for lower-income Californians.
Misconceptions: Conventional wisdom is that California weather and tolerance draw drifters, but in San Francisco, only 8% of homeless people are from out-of-state.
Solutions:
Shifting city resources to eviction counseling, emergency rental assistance and other homeless prevention.
$1 billion in this year’s state budget to help cities build shelters, long-term housing and make other one-time investments.
—CALMatters
